[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 208 (Wednesday, December 20, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8177-S8178]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
HONDURAS
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, on Monday, the head of the Honduras Supreme
Electoral Tribunal declared Juan Orlando Hernandez the next President
of Honduras. Shortly thereafter, the Secretariat of the Organization of
American States, one of the principal international observers,
announced that it could not certify the election as free and fair and
called for a new election. Yesterday, after his top advisers rebuked
the OAS for infringing on Honduras's sovereignty, President Hernandez,
stating that ``the Honduran people have spoken,'' declared himself
President-elect.
On December 5, I spoke at length about the Honduran election, and I
have made several statements since then. I will not repeat what I and
many others have already said about the troubling process orchestrated
by President Hernandez and his associates over the past several years
to lay the groundwork for his reelection for an unprecedented second
Presidential term, nor about the many irregularities that have caused
masses of people to take to the streets in protest since the vote on
November 26. As of today, at least 12 protesters, and perhaps as many
as 20, have been killed and many more injured, mostly from military
police firing live ammunition. I was disappointed that, in his speech
yesterday, President Hernandez made no mention of those tragic deaths.
As we await the Trump administration's decision on whether to support
the OAS's call for a new election or accept President Hernandez' claim
to a second term, I want to make three points.
First, if this flawed election had been held in a country not led by
a President whose consolidation of power and reliance on the military
and police have had the strong backing of the White House and the State
Department, it is doubtful that it would be accepted as free and fair.
Instead, the White House, which has been willing to excuse the
Hernandez government's corruption scandals and crackdown on the press
and civil society, would likely be calling for a recount or, if the
integrity of the ballots could not be assured, a new election.
Second, the OAS deserves the thanks of people throughout this
hemisphere for the role it has played as an impartial observer and for
standing up for a free and fair election in Honduras at a time when
democratic processes, freedom of expression and association, and
independent judiciaries are threatened not only in Honduras but in many
parts of Latin America. Next year, Presidential and Parliamentary
elections are scheduled in many countries in Central and South America,
and the OAS, which has been a strong defender of democracy and human
rights in Venezuela, has a vital role to play in seeking to ensure that
those elections meet international standards of fairness and
transparency. It is therefore particularly important and reassuring
that the OAS Secretariat has insisted on such standards in Honduras by
calling for a new election, and it is just as important that the United
States stands with the OAS at this time.
Third, it is ultimately for the people of Honduras to decide what
kind of a government they want and whether to accept the result
declared by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, which has little
credibility outside of President Hernandez's National Party. It is
clear that the country is sharply divided politically, socially, and
economically. Absent an electoral process that is widely accepted as
free and fair, that divisiveness will imperil the progress that is
urgently needed in combating poverty, violence, organized crime,
corruption, and impunity that pose immense challenges for the future.
But the international community and particularly the people of this
hemisphere also have a stake in this election and in Honduras's future.
In the past decade alone, the United States has provided many hundreds
of millions of dollars in aid to Honduras, much of which I supported,
but that aid has not achieved the results that the Honduran people and
we wanted, and the reason for that, I believe, is primarily because
successive Honduran Governments were not serious about addressing many
of the key problems I have mentioned, yet the aid kept flowing.
Unfortunately, I am not convinced that the current government is
sufficiently serious about this, either.
Honduras today desperately needs a freely and fairly elected leader
who can unite the country. Unfortunately, this election lacked the
conditions of fairness and transparency necessary to produce that
result. If a new election is
[[Page S8178]]
held under such conditions, it is entirely possible that President
Hernandez may win--or he may not. But for him, or any candidate, to
obtain the mandate required to unite the country and make a credible
case that his government is a deserving partner of the United States,
it will need to be by rejecting the serious flaws of this election and
demonstrating to all the people of Honduras and this hemisphere what
real democracy looks like.
I ask unanimous consent that today's Bloomberg View editorial calling
for a new democratic election in Honduras be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
The U.S. Should Back New Elections in Honduras
(By James Gibney and Michael Newman)
Latin America needs to start its big election year on the right foot
There is only one way out of Honduras's deepening political
crisis, and that is a new presidential election. It's a
solution the U.S., with its long history in Latin America,
should help bring about--although it would help if it had an
ambassador there.
The certification this week of incumbent President Juan
Orlando Hernandez's contested victory in last month's
election has brought Hondurans into the streets, continuing a
wave of violent demonstrations that have claimed at least 24
lives. It comes after a deeply flawed ballot-counting process
that included long delays, after which Hernandez's early
deficit mysteriously disappeared. (The final tally put him
ahead by about 1.5 percent.) The vote was denounced by
numerous observers--including the Organization of American
States, which has called for new elections.
Yet the U.S., which has no ambassador in Tegucigalpa or an
assistant secretary of State for the hemisphere, has been
only mildly critical. When Hernandez's victory was certified,
it urged opposing political parties to ``raise any concerns
they may have.'' And just after the disputed election, the
State Department renewed aid to Honduras--a move widely
interpreted as tacit support for Hernandez.
Hernandez has won friends in Washington with his
willingness to crack down on crime and illegal migration to
the U.S., and his investor-friendly policies. At the same
time, his administration has been responsible for ugly human
rights abuses and been implicated in several high-profile
corruption scandals. Moreover, he has extended his tenure
only by packing Honduras's Supreme Court to lift the
country's one-term limit for presidents. The head of the
court responsible for certifying election results is one of
Hernandez's close allies.
Even before last month's flawed vote, Honduras was notable
for the lack of popular confidence in its electoral
mechanisms. And if it's stability that Washington seeks,
these disputed results don't promise to achieve it.
Protracted unrest will only make fighting drugs and illegal
migration harder.
The contrast between the OAS and the U.S. could also hurt
U.S. influence and credibility. The U.S. has rightly
supported the OAS in its efforts to hold Venezuela
accountable for its electoral crimes. If it fails to do the
same in Honduras, it risks setting a dangerous double
standard. This would be especially damaging in a year when
nearly two out of three Latin Americans are scheduled to go
to the polls.
As the administration's just-released National Security
Strategy says, ``Stable, friendly, and prosperous states in
the Western Hemisphere enhance our security and benefit our
economy.'' The best way to ensure that Honduras becomes one
is to support free, transparent and fair elections.
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